Even in the dusk, and doggedly turned away, they had been conscious of his eyes, moving enquiringly from face to face. Both of them, staring either at the sky or at the floor, saw equally the gleam of the white head turning and pausing and always turning again. In the house, in spite of its dumb ghosts, there was still the strange emptiness that stays so long after a death, as if out of a full cup some portion has been spilled. The silence enfolding the brothers seemed to beg to speak for itself, to deplore and refuse the harsh necessity of words. But still the old man’s eyes travelled and begged; and at last the slack-shouldered elder moved his head in a dreary shake.
“I’m no use to you that way, Father, I doubt,” Bob said. “What this place wants is brass, and I’ve none o’ that at my back. It takes me all my time and more to shift along as it is, as folks in plenty’ll tell you if you ax. It’s no manner o’ use my thinking o’ the farm.”
There was a second pause after that, and with it a sense in the air that the question had passed on, but nobody answered it except by that silence which resisted and refused. Then Bob spoke again, with a sort of half-shamed urging in his tone. “The lad here mun ha’ saved a bit by now. Happen Thomas could see to help you out.”
Undoubtedly Thomas had seemed the one to help—the youngest, the strongest, and the man who had the brass. It was well enough known that he had saved, had been careful and patient, anxious to lay by. They knew, too, that he meant to take a farm, and here was Beautiful End for the lifting of a hand. What could he possibly want that would be more likely than that? Bob, who could as well have taken the Hall itself as the little farm, envied his younger brother with all his heart. It was on Thomas the old man had relied, never on Bob; that was perfectly clear to the one who had not made out. The asking of them together had been only a form, a polite concession to conservative family dues. Thomas was the right and proper person to respond; to put it plainly, he was the only one who could. But the claim on his help had come at the worst possible time, and his natural kindly instinct smothered in revolt.
“Not but I doubt Marget would never ha’ come,” Bob was drawling on in his tired voice. “There’s over much work on a farm to suit her by a deal. I reckon she’d ha’ thought it a dreary spot an’ all. She’s one as likes seeing folks go by, and a sight o’ clattin’ an’ suchlike in the street. But the lad here isn’t bothered wi’ a missis just yet, nor like to be, as far as we know. There’s nowt to keep him from throwing up his job. He’s free to do as suits him, is Tom.”
And still Thomas did not speak, ashamed of himself and yet holding himself hard. The aversion with which he had set out to meet this probable demand arose in him again in a fierce flood and all but forced him to his feet. It was a wet night, or he might never have come at all, but on an evening like this Agnes would be sure to be fast at home. There would be no chance of meeting her about the fields or lanes. He could never have brought himself to come so far, while the hope of her face was behind each turn and hedge.... Yet here he was being asked to leave the spot for good—he, whose uncertainty could not stay one hour!
Suddenly he spoke, without preamble or excuse, long after the question seemed to have fainted away and died, ashamed. “I’m no use, neither,” he heard himself saying at last, his voice sounding dull and cold over the wrath and shame within. He was still staining at the sky while he spoke. Failure may look at the floor because of the burden on its back, but success, when it makes its refusal, must look up. It was then that the moon slid round the corner, and drew nearer, and looked in. He felt a spasm of rage against it, as at another spectator of the ignoble scene.
“Ay, but you’ve the brass saved all right!” Bob exclaimed, twisting his head to get a glimpse of his brother’s face. His discomfort at his own position in the affair seemed for the moment to be swallowed up in surprise. “Many’s the time you’ve tellt me on’t, I’ sure, and how you meant taking a farm afore so long. I’d ha’ thought this had fallen in for you just right.”
“I’m not ready,” Thomas said doggedly. “I mun have a bit more time. Happen another year I could see my way....”
“A year’s neither here nor there, surely, if yon’s all?”